Trotsky: In Defence of October

The Revolution and its place in history

Let me now, in closing, attempt to ascertain the
place of the October Revolution, not only in the history of Russia but in
the history of the world.

During the year of 1918, in a period of eight
months, two historical curves intersect. The February upheaval – that
belated echo of the great struggles which had been carried out in the past
centuries on the territories of Holland, England, France, nearly all over
Continental Europe – takes its place in the series of bourgeois
revolutions.

The October Revolution proclaimed and opened the domination
of the proletariat. World capitalism suffered its first great defeat on
the Russian territory. The chain broke at its weakest link. But it was the
chain that broke, and not only the link.

Capitalism has outlived itself as a world system.
It has ceased to fulfil its essential function: the raising of the level
of human power and human wealth. Humanity cannot remain stagnant at the
level which it has reached.

Only a powerful increase in productive force
and a sound, planned, that is, socialist organisation of production and
distribution can assure humanity – all humanity – of a decent standard
of life and at the same time give it the precious feeling of freedom with
respect to its own economy.

Freedom in two senses – first of all man
will no longer be compelled to devote the greater part of his life to
physical toil. Second, he will no longer be dependent on the laws of the
market, that is, on the blind and obscure forces which work behind his
back.

He will build his economy freely, according to plan, with compass in
hand. This time it is a question of subjecting the anatomy of society to
the X-ray through and through, of disclosing all its secrets and
subjecting all its functions to the reason and the will of collective
humanity.

In this sense, socialism must become a new step in the
historical advance of mankind. Before our ancestor, who first armed
himself with a stone axe, the whole of nature represented a conspiracy of
secret and hostile forces.

Since then, the natural sciences hand in hand
with practical technology have illuminated nature down to its most secret
depths. By means of electrical energy, the physicist passes judgement on
the nucleus of the atom.

The hour is not far when science will easily
solve the task of alchemists, and turn manure into gold and gold into
manure. Where the demons and furies of nature once raged, now reigns over
more courageously the industrious will of man.

But while he wrestled victoriously with nature,
man blindly built up his [social] relations to order men, almost like the bee or the
ant. Slowly and very haltingly he approached the problems of human
society.

The Reformation represented the first victory of
bourgeois individualism in a domain which had been ruled by dead
tradition. From the church, critical thought went on to the State.

Born in
the struggle with absolutism and the medieval estates, the doctrine of the
sovereignty of the people and of the rights of man and the citizen grew
stronger. Thus arose the system of parliamentarianism.

Critical thought
penetrated into the domain of government administration. The political
rationalism of democracy was the highest achievement of the revolutionary
bourgeoisie.

But between nature and the state stands economic
life. Technical science liberated man from the tyranny of the old elements
– earth, water, fire and air – only to subject him to its own tyranny.
Man ceased to be a slave to nature to become a slave to the machine, and,
still worse, a slave to supply and demand.

The present world crisis
testifies in especially tragic fashion how man, who dives to the bottom of
the ocean, who rise up to the stratosphere, who converses on invisible
waves from the Antipodes, how this proud and daring ruler of nature
remains a slave to the blind forces of his own economy.

The historical
task of our epoch consists in replacing the uncontrolled play of the
market by reasonable planning, in disciplining the forces of production,
compelling them to work together in harmony and obediently serve the needs
of mankind. Only on this new social basis will man be able to stretch his
weary limbs and – every man and every woman, not only a selected few –
become a citizen with full power in the realm of thought.

The Future of Man

But this is not yet the end of the road. No, it
is only the beginning.

Man calls himself the crown of creation. He has a
certain right to that aim. But who has asserted that present day man is
the last and highest representative of the species Homo Sapiens? No,
physically as well as spiritually he is very far from perfection,
prematurely born biologically, with feeble thought, and has not produced
any new organic equilibrium.

It is true that humanity has more than once
brought forth giants of thought and action, who tower over their
contemporaries like summits in a chain of mountains. The human race has a
right to be proud of its Aristotle, Shakespeare, Darwin, Beethoven,
Goethe, Marx, Edison and Lenin. But why are they so rare?

Above all,
because almost without exception they came out of the middle and upper
classes. Apart from rare exceptions, the sparks of genius in the
suppressed depths of the people are choked before they can burst into
flame.

But also because the processes of creating, developing and
educating a human being have been and remain essentially a matter of
chance, not illuminated by theory and practice, not subjected to
consciousness and will.

Anthropology, biology, physiology and psychology
have accumulated mountains of material to raise up before mankind in their
full scope the tasks of perfecting and developing body and spirit.
Psychoanalysis, with the inspired hand of Sigmund Freud, has lifted the
cover of the well which is poetically called the "soul".

And
what has been revealed? Our conscious thought is only a small part of the
work of the dark psychic forces. Learned divers descend to the bottom of
the ocean and there take photographs of mysterious fishes. Human thought,
descending to the bottom of its own psychic sources must shed light on the
most mysterious driving forces of the soul and subject them to reason and
to will.

Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his
own society man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and retort of
the chemist. For the first time mankind will regard itself as raw
material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product.
Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of
freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his
contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and
happier race.

Some terms

Bonaparte, Napoleon 1 (1769-182l): Seized power
in coup d'etat in 1804, proclaiming the French empire and himself emperor.

Social Democratic International: Historically
Social Democratic was the title adopted by many workers' parties. The
International collapsed in 1914 when a majority of its parties supported
the imperialist war.

Social Revolutionaries (SRs): Peasant socialist
party. Split in 1917, the Left SRs participated for a period in the Soviet
government, while the right SRs opposed the revolution.